Live By The Golden Rule - Again
In a church basement on lower Capital Hill, a group of 100 people sat in rapt attention watching a movie screen. Across it walked a sample of mankind, all races, ethnicities, ages, sizes and shapes, in a variety of settings. Looking directly into the camera, they recited the words that the group had come to Seattle’s St. Patrick Catholic Church and thousands of locations around the world – houses of faith, homes, and on their personal computers – to hear on November 12, 2009.
The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves.
Thus began the Charter for Compassion, the brainchild of Karen Armstrong, a former nun who is considered to be one of the most original thinkers on the role of religion in the modern world. Celebrated for her notorious and provocative thinking on how religion has separated us and might unite us, this British author of twenty books on comparative religion rose to international prominence with her best-selling book, A History of God, which details the history of the three great monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
In 2008, Armstrong won the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) Award, which honors “ideas worth spreading. This $100,000 prize affords the winner a wish. Karen Armstrong’s wish was for help in “creating, launching and propagating” an international Charter for Compassion to help restore the Golden Rule as central to religious practice and daily life. Religious luminaries – the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu among them – signed on to signal their support for the project.
In some ways it is terrible that we need to be reminded to treat each other well. But this is a simple idea that reminds us that, as Armstrong says, we must “put compassion at the center of morality and religion” and through it, restore our relationships, communities, and capacity for peace.
Armstrong made clear early on that this was not simply a feel-good interfaith effort. With TED serving as her genie, she engaged the three-part wish strategy.
Part One – Internet Outreach. TED helped the Charter evolve through a massive online process. More than 150,000 people contributed their ideas to the document. The Charter was finalized in February 2009 by the Council of Conscience, made up of well-recognized religious leaders from five major religions and almost every continent.
Part Two – Inclusiveness. She invited everyone to the table, including atheists, agnostics and secular humanists. People of faith and of no faith must treat each other compassionately. While the Charter’s language is targeted at the Golden Rule, Armstrong’s inclusion of nonbelievers is in line with her renegade status and her humanism. Such inclusivess can be a challenge for some religious people to understand, but compassion does not work when the world is divided into “us” and “them.” All we need do is look at the Middle East, Afghanistan and Iraq to be reminded that God is mocked by such divisions.
Part Three – Hard Truths. The Charter does not mince words. It calls on us as individuals and as religious institutions to mind our manners, if not because we know we should, then because the world’s survival requires that we must. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We are asked to secure a compassionate future by ensuring that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures.
Faith is often as simple as this – that we treat one another well. This simplicity has the potential to become powerful political action. Those who have taken up the Charter include individuals who have affirmed it – 12,000 as of this writing - as well as houses of faith and secular institutions that are displaying it in its entirety. These include the Sydney Opera House, the Garden of Forgiveness in Beirut, the Ramallah Friends Meeting House, and the National Cathedral, Religious Action Center and Washington Hebrew Congregation in Washington, DC. It can also be found posted on the websites of many groups including the local Compassionate Action Network.
Read the Charter for Compassion in its entirety and see the video, after which you may also join a growing number of people who are affirming the Charter. Learn. Share. Act. Recall the lessons learned from your family. Or in your houses of faith.
The Charter's launch is just the clarion call for us to behave our way into the Golden Rule. Every day in every way. “Religious teaching only makes sense when you put it into action,” Armstrong contends. In this light, emphasizing the compassionate side of religions’ followers should push them toward compassionate action.
Or as Jiminy Cricket once said: Always let your conscience be your guide.